


Atonement

by Stargazer1116



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Eventual Romance, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Kylo Ren Redemption, The Force, The Force Allows Atonement and Second Chances, The Force Ships It, The Rise of Skywalker Fix-it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:21:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22858447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stargazer1116/pseuds/Stargazer1116
Summary: This is a fix-it to TROS that picks up after the film's end. It's not changing anything in it, but it does incorporate things I think should have been in the film. I hope it is a balm to your SW wounds.
Relationships: Kylo Ren & Rey, Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 16
Kudos: 78





	Atonement

It reminded her of the dancing shadows that would come when the wind rustled the leaves on the trees in Kashyyyk, the ephemeral sense of him she would feel at times.

Her time back on Ach-too was just another stop on her aimless pilgrimage to figure out—what now?

She started on Tatooine, then Bespin, Corellia...over to Chandrila, then to Kashyyyk to fulfill her promise to visit Chewie and meet his family.

She enjoyed them all, trying to trace more about the family she chose. But nothing fit. None of it was her.

No matter where she was, the echo of him still rang in her. Something was gone...was just not whole in her. She tried to fill it up with more knowledge about the Skywalkers and Solos, but nothing helped.

But when she felt that...those intangible senses of him, she thought maybe in some measure he was with her somehow.

She tried to find more info about the dyad, and what it meant. What she was able to uncover told her she shouldn’t be there...that her dyad mate dying should have killed her too.

But it didn’t. 

Ben (still it twisted her gut to say his name even in her mind) somehow, someway, found a way to save her and beat the odds.

He was, after all, Han Solo’s son.

Sometimes she went down to the cavern, and she could feel him more there. It was almost as if a piece of him was there on the other side of that transparent wall, like his image that was so clear to her right before her face appeared that first time she was there.

But still...it was fleeting. She couldn’t hold onto him...or see him. She could only feel him. And he was all the things she felt from him in those scant times before when they connected.

He was warm. He was brash. He was brooding. He was gentle. He was brave. He was wry. He was sacrificial. He was home.

She sighed as she closed the compartment where she fixed the Falcon's compressor for what felt like the thousandth time. She was almost ready to head off to the next place. She couldn’t stay here anymore and just feel the flitting tendrils of him. It was time to move on...again.

Time to find her purpose. Somehow, she had to find what was next, even though her very soul screamed that anything without him was wrong.

But the aching hole of him in the depths of her being was more sentient here...she just couldn’t face it anymore.

______________________________

The afterlife in the force was different than he thought. He had imagined some sort of world where he couldn’t escape those who had gone before him in the force. So far, though...he hadn’t seen anyone.

Not his dad...nor his mom...or even Luke. He thought for sure Luke would relish in his inability to escape him here.

No...no one was there.

It had been...rest...light...peace.

It struck him that these were never things he had felt in his life, so it made sense that he would find them on this side of things...on the right side of things…

He was conscious now, though...or whatever it was called here. 

Aware...he was aware.

Jolting from that silence, he heard something metallic in the distance. The landscape before him was flat and desert-like, yet somehow hazy around edges that disappeared. It reminded him of a mix of Bespin and Tatooine, but clearly it was neither.

About 50 meters away, there was some sort of ship. It was not quite solid, from his vantage point, but it was there.

“Kriff!”

He snickered to himself. He didn’t know there was swearing in Jedi eternity.

“Hey...could you give me a hand?” a man’s voice called out.

He was closer now, strangely, even though he hadn't moved. He saw a man standing on the side of the yellow ship, holding some sort of tool with the engine compartment open.

As he got closer, the man was no more familiar to him than he was at a distance. Something, though...something about him…

“Are you familiar with the Delta 7B?” the man asked.

Ben squinted up at him. There was no sun here, but the whole sky was illuminated and bright.

“Not particularly...but my dad taught me to work on almost anything.”

The ship-fixer chuckled. “Well...come on up. Let’s see what you got.”

Ben climbed up onto the wing, then onto the back half of the ship where the engine was. At a close range, there was something even more resonant about the man, but still, it eluded him.

After discussing the issue it was having, Ben looked over a few things, then made a suggestion that made the stranger snort.

“Look, Ben...being Han’s son might have helped you be a damn good pilot, but he wasn’t really known for his mechanical prowess.”

Ben’s head snapped up. “How...how do you know my name? And who my…”

“Why are you here, Ben?” he interrupted and asked him cryptically.

He felt anger flash, then confusion. Why was a question he had been asking himself his whole life. Why did he have to have the force, which made everything in his life harder? Why did his mom pick the senate over him? Why was Han scared of him, but then, in the end, was the only one from his family with the balls to come to him? Why did Luke try to kill him? Why did Snoke and Palpatine pursue him as an apprentice, only to use him as bait for Rey? Why did Vader never answer him...not really? Palpatine answered impersonating him...but his grandfather never…

“Because you were asking for the wrong person,” the man said with a grunt as he tightened a bolt.

Ben began to get a sense he wasn’t really here to help fix a ship...or that there even really was a ship, for that matter.

Tentatively, he asked, “Who should I have been asking for?”

The amusement left the man's face. “What do you know about him? About Vader?”

“Not...not a lot. I know he was a sith lord and the apprentice of Palpatine, and that he was the heir apparent of the Empire. I know he was my mother and Luke’s real father...and I know Luke killed him.”

That was answered with a guffaw.

“You know...I think so much of all of this could have been avoided if people had just thought to ask R2 to roll the holos...”

Ben looked more closely at his face. There was something...almost like deja vu about this man.

“You--you know R2?”

He smirked. “Who do you think taught that foul-mouthed droid how to curse?”

He glanced over at Ben, then sighed. “If you want to know the truth, you have to go back to the beginning.”

Suddenly, like they were sucked into a vortex, their feet landed on the sandy surface...more sand. But this time, Ben recognized the landscape.

“Why are we here?”

The man’s face was solemn as he watched a woman in slave quarters hugging a boy and handing him his portions for the day.

“Because this...this is the beginning.”

It took a while to follow them around and see all there was to see about the boy. It was Anakin...Anakin Skywalker. At 10, he had mechanic and piloting skills beyond his years. 

A group of people showed up. Two Jedi, it was obvious to him by their attire, and a young woman. 

She was beautiful...and almost looked like…

“Who is that?”

“Padme,” the man answered, but the way he answered it was drowning in all he didn’t say. He loved her...Ben knew that longing he heard in his voice.

“Hey...that’s R2 and C3PO!”

They watched the master Jedi bargain for Anakin to win a race and get the parts for the ship they needed. They watched him win the pod-race. They watched the master...Qui-Gon was his name...convince the boy’s mother to let him be trained at the temple.

“They don’t always know, at times like this...what the best thing to do is. The opportunity it was for him convinced her head...for him to break out of the oppression here. She thought it was the right thing. But...her heart...her heart argued for her to hold onto him. Sometimes parents don’t know what the best thing to do is.”

“Was it the right thing to do? To let him go?” Ben asked, curious where this was all going and wondering about that parental conundrum.

He was answered with a smirk. “From a certain point of view…”

Things moved quickly from there. The girl was actually a queen. The boy trained at the temple, begrudgingly allowed by the council.

“Why? Why did they want to deny him?”

The man took a moment to answer before replying softly, “They knew what he might become.”

Then time moved quickly. The girl, Padme, was older now...a senator. The boy was nineteen. He was a padawan bursting with ego and pride, begging for the chance to be noticed. He watched their romance unfold. Forbidden love. 

“Palpatine” Ben whispered while the masquerading evil whispered in Anakin’s ear the greatness he could attain. He knew that voice.

A wedding.

Anakin training his own padawan, Ashoka. The politics of the Jedi council. Anakin grew older, and he struggled. The Dark and light pulled him in a tug-o-war that was painfully familiar to Ben.

“Wait!”

A new baby to come.

“He...that...it’s you. You are him. You are Anakin.”

The man...Anakin...his grandfather...turned to him with eyes dripping with grief and regret. “Yes...I am. Now.”

And slowly, Ben watched Anakin fall to Palpatine’s lies. He watched the young love grow dark as Anakin’s fear rose for her life.

He watched him become all that he believed against to protect her.

At least, that is what it was at first. But then Ben recognized a seed of something else that felt familiar; the greed for power.

It germinated and grew. He watched that love twist into something dark and destructive. He watched him become Vader.

It destroyed him...it destroyed her.

But the babies…

It was a strange thing, seeing your parent as an infant. His feisty, strong, brave mother and his cranky, condescending, wisened uncle as helpless.

Separated.

They followed Leia to her new home. He got just a glimpse of her homeworld and her adoptive parents before it was all gone.

Then they followed Luke back to the beginning...back to Tatooine.

Then Old Ben...Obi-Wan, watching Luke as a young man from afar as he stared out over the sunset and dreamed of adventures he thought he would never take.

His mother appeared, young and beautiful. His father and Chewie smuggling and outrunning the huts. The death star. Hoth. Dagobah. Endor. His parents falling in love.

Luke regaling Vader with knowing there was still good in him. He saw the crack in Vader too...when love got in.

It echoed in him, recalling the moment his own crack came on that catwalk in the bowels of Starkiller.

Palpatine...in all his power demanding that Vader destroy Luke...trying to kill Luke himself.

Then Vader snapped and threw the Emperor into the Abyss. He knew it didn’t take...but it felt final at that moment.

Then Luke saw Yoda, Ben, and Anakin in a force vision on Tatooine.

It then morphed to years Ben was mostly familiar with. His parents newly married, Leia's pregnancy. He was shaken when he could see and sense the darkness lurking and swirling around Leia's rounding belly. He was always haunted...even then...

...himself as a baby, himself as a toddler...

...the droid nannies. He remembered being afraid of them. Now he saw why as one of them attempted to take his life.

He saw the night terrors and two hapless, exhausted, inexperienced parents doing their best. His heart ached as he saw his small form asleep on Han's chest.

Then his pre-teen years. He knew the darkness had been rising then, but seeing it...well...that was something else entirely. His eyes went to his parents. Han just seemed confused at his outbursts manifesting dark side characteristics...but Leia looked...guilty.

The sending him away to Luke was next. He stayed with his parents as they watched Luke's ship fly away. Leia was inconsolable. Han was stoic. He tried to comfort his wife, but as he looked up at the ship hurling farther and farther into the sky, he looked hesitant and angry.

His academy days still seemed so fresh in many ways. The other students. His good friend Tai. Tai had really been his only friend, the only one to look past Ben's abilities and heritage and give him a fair shake. The others waffled between fear, jealousy, and competitiveness with him. He never fit.

That fateful night. He clearly saw the peak of Luke's folly standing over him, then saw the moment he changed his mind and started to lower the saber in regret, but then Ben awoke and called his saber. Luke's regret was too late, and it set off a firestorm of events. The fire. The other students chasing and challenging him. Him finally going to Snoke. The agreement to join the Knights of Ren. Rematching with his friends to prove his worthiness to the Knights. Tai's death...Ren's death...

The moment he wished he go back to, for surely it altered his course...when he bled his kyber crystal and finally became Kylo Ren,

It was difficult to watch his mentorship with Snoke alter from the friend and benevolent leader he first purported to be to the master manipulator and abuser he became. The pain and anguish his "lessons" brought ghosted in his body as he watched them with his eyes.

"It was him, you know. Snoke was really just a puppet--a manifestation of sorts of Palpatine. It was always him, though, from the moment he sensed your being in her womb. His designs on you started then."

The night on Jakku with Lor...Takodonna...Starkiller.

While he rewrote in his mind that moment on the catwalk with his father...watching it again was no less painful. He saw the emotions cross his face struggling between what his mind told him he had to do to be free and the protest his heart cried out in response.

The dual in the forest, the first force bond...

... _Monster_...

...but then she confided in the monster... _touched_ the monster. It was the most intimate moment in Ben's life. He wasn't prepared for the headiness of it, nor the images that flashed through the bond as a result.

She confronted Luke... _fought_ him for Ben's sake. She heard his words to Luke before she came to him. "Then he's our only hope."

Guilt ricocheted through him at those words. Hope. It was what he was named for, yet he had felt so little of it in his life...

A shred of it came when that escape pod landed on the Supremacy. When she chose to come to him, not knowing what it might mean. It was only the second time someone had done that. No one had since Han...

That is what made his decision to kill Snoke so easy. He wasn't sure how as they marched through the halls and rose to the throne room level in that turbolift. He saw himself dazed as he tried to take in what she was saying, wrestled with his intense feelings for her, and plotted Snoke's demise. He knew what he needed to do...but how?

Snoke leaving the saber on the armrest was a gift he couldn't have orchestrated better himself. Perhaps is was the will of the Force. His anger snapped into a cold, calculating rage as he watched him torture her. Just one flick of his fingers, all those years of torment were just gone.

The fight was a beautiful dance of two souls connected. He had never seen anything like it. But then came the disagreement...a living crystal shattered.

He saw her wake first and bring his saber to him. Her fingers tentatively checking his pulse, then smoothing a lock of hair off his forehead before she ran to escape on Snoke's shuttle.

Crait. He had no idea that was her in the Falcon. In the storm of his hurt and anger, his sense of her was off. 

Luke. At the moment he couldn't see it, but now he knew what Luke did, not really being there yet bringing closure for him was a mercy he didn't deserve.

"He knew it had to be that way, Ben. If he was really there...and you killed him too...you would have never..." his grandfather's voice trailed off.

"I know," Ben replied simply.

Another year of rage and ravaging as he wrestled with what he felt was her betrayal. He knew now that she couldn't have taken his hand. He was not where he should have been yet, and with what flowed in her blood, he would have dragged her down with him.

So he chased her. Grabbing that necklace...on Kimji...on the deck of his ship...him always chasing and her always running, until that final battle on the remains of the Deathstar. 

"You know...I was never the kind of father to meet the boyfriend, but she did pretty well with that one..." Anakin murmured as they watched his redux moment with Han. His throat clogged again in emotion as he so clearly saw his father's love for him, then broke free when he threw that saber and felt freedom for the first time in his life.

This part was still so fresh. He felt again the urgency to get to her. Finding his way back to her through the force. His emotions churned as he watched his corporeal body race into Palpatine's lair with no plan and a blaster.

"You really are your father's son after all, eh Benny boy?" Anakin teased. He grinned in response. There was no denying that in his desperate, uncharted race to help the woman he loved.

The moment they connected in the force...before she passed that saber to him...that was the second most beautiful moment of his life. He had never felt as connected to another person until...

...the pain from the pit...the anguish over finding her gone...the healing...

...then the _most_ gorgeous moment. The way her face looked when her eyes popped open. He couldn't contain the joy it brought. His eyes welled again just watching it. He never thought he would see and sense that kind of love directed at him. And when her lips touched his...it was inexplicable.

He knew at that moment that all of it...ALL of it...was worth it. She was worth it, and it was true even as he watched himself fade away and felt her anguish over it.

She was his everything.

Last, he saw Rey there at the abandoned homestead. She slid down the hill like a little girl, likely remembering her days on Jakku. Then he watched her wrap Luke and Leia's lightsabers and bury them in the sand. 

"Why did she do that?" he wondered out loud.

That earned another snort from Anakin. "Hell if I know. I think she thought this place would be meaningful to them. We'll tell her later Luke hated it and Leia was Jabba's slave here. For now, let her think she did a good thing."

Then their feet were back on the dream-like place where they started. The ship was gone. They just leaned up against a rock.

“So, in answer to your question...you were asking for someone who didn’t exist anymore. When I chose Luke over my master...I ceased to become Vader and was restored to be myself.”

While his appearance made him seem Ben’s age, his eyes were ancient.

“Just like when you faced your father and chose him...chose your mother...chose Rey...you ceased to become Kylo.”

Ben sat with that for a moment.

The chuckle came. “Why you didn’t choose it earlier though...after you killed Snoke, that was just foolish. Think of all the time you could have had with her.”

He winced.

“I know why, though,” Anakin said with heavy regret. “It was the same thing that robbed my love for Padme; the seduction of power.”

Something welled up in Ben he hadn’t felt since being here; rage.

He clenched his fists and his mind screamed as he stood.

“Why? Why couldn’t you have just told me all of this? Why did you hide from me? Why didn’t you answer me when you saw him coming after me? Why?” he bellowed.

He stopped yelling, yet his reduced tone was no less anguished. "I cried out for you...for years. And...you let him lie to me. He pretended to be you...and you just...just..."

He turned and looked him in the eye. "You let it happen."

Anakin jumped up and grasped his arms, his strength something that couldn’t be fought against.

“Ben...I know. I’m sorry...I wish I could have. But...the Force wouldn’t let me.”

They were both sobbing now. Anakin pulled him into an embrace that would not let him go.

“I wanted so badly...you have no idea...how devastating it was to watch one of your own go through that. I couldn’t protect you from him. I had to watch him prey on you...stir your mind with lies and manipulation, and I couldn’t help you. It tore me apart. I’m so sorry...I’m so sorry...I’m so...”

He just held him as they both let out years of pain and sorrow. When the tears finally subsided, Anakin started talking again.

“What the force did let me do was be an instrument in the dyad between you and Rey. Before she was born, I bonded her to you. It was a way to protect the future from another Palpatine, but to make sure you wouldn’t be alone. It was my hope that the two of you could undo the damage I did as Vader. I believed you could both overcome your heritage.”

Ben snorted through his tears and finally shrugged off his grandfather’s embrace. “Well...that didn’t work.”

He reached out and grasped Ben's shoulder. “Actually...it did. You helped her defeat him. She was wavering and was about to give into him to save her friends. If you hadn’t shown when you did...all hope would have been lost. She defeated him…but she couldn't have without you.”

“And then I died...”

Ben's words echoed across the landscape.

Anakin turned from him slowly, as in deep thought. With his hands on his hips, he looked out into the distance and asked, “What would you have done?”

Ben looked at him puzzled. “What would I have done about what?”

“If you had lived...what would you have done? You walked away from Kylo...what would have happened next...as Ben?”

The thought befuddled him. He never thought about that. Once he came back to himself, all that mattered was saving Rey. First from Palpatine’s plans, then from death. He had nothing after that. And even that wasn’t planned. He never felt more Han’s son than in those blaster wielding, barreling into the lair with no strategy moments.

“I probably would have spent my life in prison...it’s what I deserved.”

Anakin snorted. “Well...luckily what we deserve isn’t always what we get. I died, and that was right. My body there was old and broken in all the ways the reveling in the dark for so many years ravaged it. But you...you were still young and healthy. And when love came your way, it changed you. Where my love for Padme drove me to the dark in fear, your love for Rey called you to the light and helped you face your fear. What you did on that bridge...going back to that moment with Han and facing what you thought was your unpardonable mistake...that was all I could never do. You faced your fear, the destiny of a Jedi, and then you chose a different path. So in my mind, you deserved a different end than me. So...if you had lived and were free, what would you have done? Married that girl and lived out your days on a quiet planet with my great-grandkids running about?”

Ben’s eyes shut in agony. “No. I can’t even imagine that. I...she never...we weren't..." He stopped and swallowed hard. "I definitely don’t deserve that.”

“Then what?”

What would he do? What was he built for? The son of royalty and a galaxy leader. His mother excelled at strategy and the chess match of negotiation. But he was also the son of a scoundrel-smuggler-general. But he had what neither of them did...at least not fully. He had the force too and was fully-trained to use it.

“I...I guess I would have tried to right some of my wrongs,” he finally admitted softly.

That brought amusement back to Anakin's eyes. “Like what? Give me an example.”

He gulped. “Well...I knew things as Supreme Leader that were wrong, but not necessarily in my jurisdiction to do something about. I could have used my unique...uh...skillset to work towards dismantling the crime cartels and freeing their slaves.”

Anakin grinned at him, and he recognized it as his own. He inherited more than evil from this man.

“Good. What else? What would you have done?”

He thought again before starting, “It always bothered me, the way the first order stripped all the mining planets. I think now, with some light side force healing, I could work toward helping some of them and letting their people move away from poverty.”

His grandfather’s grin morphed into a full-fledged smile and he nodded.

“Then what?”

Ben’s mind was racing. “I know where the database of stormtrooper background info is. Its server is planetside...possibly untouched still in spite of the ships being destroyed. I could help them find their way back where they come from? I mean...a lot of them had no one, but just as many were taken from their homes. If their family is still there...maybe I could help them find them?”

Anakin stepped toward him slowly, and once he was close, he reached up and cupped the side of his face. It was hauntingly familiar to what Han did. His aged eyes locked emphatically for a few moments, holding his captive. Finally, he spoke.

“May the force be with you.”

Then he pushed him back and Ben’s world went black.

________________________________

Rey still, after 3 years, hadn’t really found her place. She still drifted around between her friends.

For a time she helped Maz rebuild the castle on Takodana. That took the better part of a year. 

She and Finn talked about maybe doing an academy again someday since he was force sensitive too, but neither of them felt like they knew enough for that yet. She spent some time on Yavin IV training him. Many of the resistance came back there and settled together after the war.

Poe was finally making headway in wooing Zorri. She thought there was more there than they were sharing, but she let them be. Rey frequently knocked Finn upside the head for blowing things with Rose, but encouraged him that maybe he still had a chance if he made amends.

Over time, more and more former stormtroopers found him and Jannah there. They told tales of a mysterious benefactor who helped them all find their roots. The ones with family stayed with them. The rest decided to find their way together. There was a certain comfort in forming a newfound family together.

She finally found the courage to confess to her chosen tribe about Ben too. About their connection...the dyad...what he did.

Poe was incredulous at first, but as the only one of their group that knew him when they were kids, his acceptance came faster than Finn.

Finn...well...he had a harder time.

Rose, though...Rose never took any convincing. She quietly listened as Rey explained what happened and hugged her. When others questioned her loyalty...or even her sanity...she was a stalwart shadow always defending Rey and quietly encouraging others to honor the memory of Leia by honoring the heroic end of her son. She also finally goaded Finn into the conversation he had been avoiding since Rey finally started talking about Ben.

"I..I mean...REY! Kylo Ren? Are you kriffing kidding me?"

"You don't know him Finn...not really," she reasoned carefully.

"I don't know him? Are you kidding me? I'm the only one here that really does. He just showed you what he wanted you to see to get in your..."

Her anger flashed and her hand shot out, not choking him, but no longer allowing him to speak either. She walked up to him, eyes laden with tears.

"You have no idea what you are talking about, Finn. I was there, standing down Palpatine alone, and he..." her voice caught as she struggled to continue. "He was threatening you...all of you, and I wasn't strong enough to take him down alone. I almost caved...I was turning in my mind back and forth, trying to reason if I could keep enough of myself protected if I did what he wanted so I could save all of you and keep you safe, but make no mistake...I was going to do what he wanted to save all of you. I would have turned to the dark. You saw me the few days leading up to then...how I was struggling already. He provided just the bait I needed to agree. And then..."

She stopped again, willing down the emotion. "And then, Finn...I felt him. He was there, and he was Ben Solo again. Kylo Ren was gone, and he was everything you would imagine Han & Leia's son would be. Brave and cocky, protective and intuitive. He gave me the courage to resist Palpatine. We fought him together, and while in the end I was the only one standing, I couldn't have done it without him."

She fisted her hands on his shirt then and got closer. His eyes bugged at her words, but stayed locked with hers.

"And then, Finn...when it was all over, my strength was gone and I was fading. My spirit had separated from my body...I was gone."

She eased her hold on him and Finn swallowed roughly, his eyes now married in unshed tears as he listened. He remembered feeling her leaving...the absence of her he sensed on Exogol.

"I was dead...and Ben Solo crawled out of the pit Palpatine hurled him into and he saved me...saved me, Finn. He traded his life for mine. First he saved all of you, and the whole galaxy, by showing up when I needed him most, then he literally saved my life."

Finn reached out then and clasped his hands behind her neck, pulling their foreheads together.

"I..I didn't know."

She sighed and held onto his arms, before pulling back to look in his eyes. "I know...and I know you can't understand, but Ben Solo knew me better than anyone. When he died, a piece of me died with him." She shook her head, flinging the tears now flowing from her checks into the air around her. "I loved him, Finn. We had the bond...but it grew to more, and I loved him. And now I'm alone. I love all of you too, but in a different way, and there is part of me that you will never get. There is this cavern in my heart that is just hollow and empty...and I don't know if I will ever be whole again.

He pulled her close and kissed her forehead. No words were needed. He didn't like it, but he knew this topic was closed for discussion.

___________________________________________________

The galaxy was changing. There the Hutts were nearly destroyed after an unknown enemy targeted them. Other crime cartels were targeted as well. Was it a group? Some kind of mysterious vigilante?

Planets like Rose’s home were miraculously recovering from the destruction the First Order brought when it hoarded their resources. People believed it was because the evil influence of the force was gone and they were free to self-regenerate, but Rey wasn't sure. It seemed like more than that to her.

And now...now Rey heard about some force sensitive orphans that were finding a home on Naboo. It filled her with worry, not knowing who it was or what they were doing with them. Was it someone evil? Someone good? Would there be someone else to fight?

Something was happening in the Force. These things seemed all connected somehow to her, but they also appeared strangely shrouded from her too. At the same time...something was calling to her. She had to go figure it out.

So she landed the Falcon on the lush planet and hiked a few kilometers to the reported academy area. When she looked through the viewfinder, she saw less than a dozen children and a stunning Togruta with tan skin and a beautiful blue and white headdress. 

As Rey approached her, without turning her soft lilting voice that pulled with familiarity in her mind called out, “I was wondering when you would come, Rey.”

Then brilliant blue eyes turned to her.

“You...you know me?”

Her laugh sounded young and free. “Oh...I know many things.”

She turned back to the children and said something to them in a dialect Rey didn’t recognize.

After they left, Rey spoke out. “I didn’t know anyone was anyone training younglings anymore,” she said with her eyebrows furrowed.

“I am Ahsoka, Rey.'

Realization dawned on her. "You...you were one of the voices...one of the Jedi I heard...on Exogol."

She nodded. "Come...there are many things to show you--many things to talk about in time. But, first things first.”

They walked across a meadow and suddenly it was hard to keep her attention on her new acquaintance. A crystalline lake with waterfalls billowing into it drew her attention to one side, but then a stunning villa caught it on the other.

“So...Ahsoka. Your force training. What are you…”

Upon closer inspection, she could tell the other woman was older, though her lively form and youthful voice just how old she was.

“Are you familiar with Anakin Skywalker?” 

“I...yes. He became Vader...right?”

With a sigh, Ahsoka affirmed her guess. “He did, but before that, he was a good man...and I was his padawan. I was there when he fell. I saw what happened. I also was privy to the height of the Jedi council and all they did. What we do here, Rey...definitely is to the light side. But...we are not Jedi, at least not in the traditional sense.”

“We?”

That rewarded her with a smile.

“You will see soon. But first, I just want to assure you, what we are is closer to what was once called the Prime...or gray Jedi. We believe that the Jedi only had things half right. Shutting down all emotion leaves people vulnerable to the dark, when they think any anger or fear means they can’t still be good. Rather than deny emotions, we teach that only leaning into them and working through them leads to peace. Ignorance is to be avoided, but only knowledge puffs up. It must be tempered with wisdom. Some passion...well...sometimes our passions bring serenity and resisting them brings violence. Chaos can find harmony if it doesn’t give up searching for the path.”

They came to the top of the inclined meadow to a flat land between the villa and the lake. Ahsoka stopped there and turned those knowing eyes to her.

“But, they were right about this...there is no death...only the force.”

Rey had a strange sense with those words. They were weighty and felt significant.

Ahsoka turned and looked toward the lake, then gently turned Rey to face it. She leaned forward and whispered in Rey’s ear, “The belonging you seek is ahead of you...Rey.”

Those words swirled with the others in her mind and caused a firestorm there as her eyes turned to where Ahsoka pointed her. There at the edge of the lake was someone. It was too far to see clearly, but it seemed to be a man in dark clothing.

Like a magnet pulling her, her legs just started moving toward him.

Fifty paces out, she saw black pants, boots, and a jacket. Ebony hair flowed in the breeze. His back was to her. She didn’t readily recognize him, but something in the force sang to her the closer she got.

_Yes, Rey_

_These are your next steps, Rey_

_The belonging you seek_

_I'll come back for you, Sweetheart_

Twenty feet away, it hit her and sucked out all her breath, like a happabore had barreled into her.

It...it couldn’t possibly be. She watched him...in her very arms…he was just _gone_.

But when he turned his head to the side, and she saw that familiar profile, her heart nearly burst.

“It took you long enough, Scavenger.” His voice was deeper...peaceful...calm. It was also laced with his father’s teasing edge.

Ten paces out, she just froze in place. The emotional weight of it all rooted her feet in place with disbelief.

He turned fully to her then. He looked the same...and also not.

He had facial hair that she was certain would not have been allowed with First Order regulations. It did nothing to hide his closed-mouth, lopsided grin, though.

His hair was about the same length but seemed to flow freer somehow. She thought she saw a few silver strands glistening in the sunlight.

His eyes though...they locked on her. They were no longer anguished. There were laugh lines around them; lighter...but no less intense.

They stood there, him smirking and her with tears streaming down her cheeks for what felt like an eternity but was likely seconds.

Finally, her mouth moved and she breathed out, “Ben…”

Instantly his face fell and he stalked toward her. He stopped right in front of her. His eyes were now swimming with tears too, but not like the last time she saw him. No, this time they were tears brimming with hope.

His hands slowly lifted to cup her cheeks. His thumbs traced over them to sweep away her tears, and she felt the rest of his fingers tenderly cradling the back of her neck.

When he spoke, his voice was husky and full of emotion, and she was sure it was the sweetest sound she had ever heard. Her lids begged to close at the intensity of it, but she couldn't risk letting go of their eye contact lest he disappear again somehow.

“Hello there...sweetheart.”

**Author's Note:**

> It is just atrocious to me that JJ and CT brought back Palp but not Anakin. It just makes zero sense to me. And...Ahsoka would have been the perfect partner for Ben who could understand his struggle and offer grace, having a front-row seat to Anakin's fall.


End file.
